Teiji Ito: Music for film

Ito (1935–1982) collaborated with key figures of the 1950s–80s New York underground culture, most significantly with legendary experimental filmmakers Maya Deren and Marie Menken. Much of Ito’s work was not scored, but driven by a set of guiding ideas, making performances of his work today incredibly rare.

For this unique event, researcher and musician Michiko Ogawa has transcribed Ito’s original recordings in detail, and assembled a group of musicians to realise a world first live performance of some of Ito’s most well-known film scores with screenings of 16mm films.Michiko Ogawa is a Japan­ese performer-composer, and in 2019, she was awarded DMA at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, where she she was under­tak­ing research on work and life of Teiji Ito. She is in the begin­ning stages of writ­ing a biogra­phy of Ito’s life.​The program includes:Passage to Nirvana [Solo Clarinet – No film]Meshes of the Afternoon 1943 (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid)Bagatelle for Willard Maas 1961 (Marie Menken)Dwightiana 1959 (Marie Menken)The Very Eye of Night 1958 (Maya Deren)